The Truth About Talent, Hard Work, Passion, and Potential
One of my favorite quotes is that “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard “. I love this quote so much because it’s so true. Talent is not an indication of potential. How hard one works to invest in their talents is the true indication of potential.
Furthermore, how hard one works has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with passion and purpose. My rule of thumb is that in order to have the motivation to work as hard as you must to turn a talent into potential, the talent must represent something one truly loves and wants to do. This rule of thumb nearly always proves to be true because the hard work and drudgery one must invest to turn a talent into potential doesn’t feel as bad when passion and purpose drives the process.
The truth is, when a talented person doesn’t work hard it’s because they don’t have passion and purpose. It may appear that the person is lazy and is not a hard worker, but this is just not true. I don’t believe there are lazy people, there are just people who lack passion and purpose.
As a result, whenever there is a person in a room who has more passion and purpose than everyone else that person will always be the one with the most potential in that room regardless of talent.